Scenes From A Recovery
by Indigo2831
Summary: Missing Scenes and Codas for 11.17, 'Red Meat.' An on-going series of stand-alone ficlets detailing the boys' recovery after that hunt-turned-nightmare.
1. Confessions

Hi! Supernatural's 'Red Meat' was one of the best episodes of the series. I've had dozens of plot bunnies for a tag from 'Red Meat' and after struggle to combine them all into one cohesive story, I decided to have fun with it and turn it into a writing challenge! Each entry will be 400 words or less and should read like a complete story that detail the aftermath of that terrible hunt. I'll post them here as I write them. The stories will be capable of standing alone, but I will post them in some order that makes sense.

Feel free to join The Red Meat Writing Challenge. I used the tag #RedMeat400 on Tumblr. It can be used here too in the description! The more the merrier!

* * *

 **Confessions**

 **Word Count: 399**

Collapsing to the floor of the clinic is worse than being shot, a bomb detonating inside instead of bullet punching through. Fire engulfing his entire body instead of just a merry smoldering in his gut. His retort to Dean's one-liner is a gurgled howl of agony. He's been fighting for so long, and he can't anymore. Sound and resolve vanish on the tails on his adrenaline-charged strength, and he tips over, fading.

An arm sweeps over his chest, cradling him upright and blessedly still. Dark blood slicks and over the white tile. He's crying, but he figures he's earned a few bitten-off sobs.

Dean literally holds him together, and he can feel the urgent, angry vibration his encouragement even though he can't hear it.

The medical staff descends, and it's too much—probing hands, jarring movement, blinding light and _painpainpain_. Every nerve feels raw and exposed. Sam's trapped in the wreckage of his own body, unable to speak or move or do anything but struggle for breathe and heave tears.

Until hands touch his mouth and nose.

Adrenaline overrides the pain and weakness. His senses and strength return with the gentility of a thunderclap. He shoots upright on the gurney with such force, the braked bed rocks forward. Someone has to know what happened, that evil isn't just fangs, bloodthrist and black eyes.

Sometimes it's just a person pushed too far, who loves too hard.

"Whoa, Sammy! Relax! You're gonna be fine, I promise."

"..no…Ccorbin wanted… _he choked me, killed me_." He gropes for his weapon, some semblance of security but his hand closes around empty air until Dean folds it in his own. "K-killed me…so you'd save 'em," Sam declares.

A fierce violence glints in Dean's eyes, but it's instantly replaced by something warm and glittery, love tangled with pride. He gingerly loops an arm around Sam's shoulders, guiding back down. "It's a good thing that motherfucker is dead, huh? We both know where he went." Dean holds both of his hands down loosely. "These nice people here are grateful that you saved their asses, so let them get you nice and stoned, okay? Just rest, Sammy. I'm not leavin' you again."

The timbre of Dean's voice is infinitely more soothing than x-rays or narcotics. Sam holds Dean's eyes as his clothes are cut off and eventually, the oxygen mask is cautiously reapplied, nurturing life instead of taking it.


	2. Coulda, Woulda, Shoulda

Thanks so much for the follows and the feedback!

* * *

 **Coulda, Woulda, Shoulda**

 **Word Count: 399**

The world that had once been a constant and treacherous assault is now a gauzy blur of shuttered, dreamy light. The searing pain that had he'd endured for so long is blessedly blunted. Exhaustion is woven into his joints and soul, like the invasive roots of a tree, and that actually aches more than the wound. Sam sinks into the cocoon of warmth he thought he'd never experience again, and tries to sleep.

A calloused hand settles on his arm. The touch is a worryingly gentle departure from Dean's usual gruff-and-grab.

Sam's eyes seep open, fluttering in a feeble effort to focus. He lavishes in the well-known lines of Dean's shadowed profile. Neither Winchester speaks. They don't need to. They're together, and that's always been enough.

Reality lingers on the fringes, outside of the pleasant cushion of painkillers and the charged quiet of the hospital room.

" _I would've carried you_ ," Dean's voice rumbles with conviction. His hands are clasped, knuckles bruised and bloody. Sam sees the tightness in his shoulders as they try to carry the anvilous weight of the past day. "I would've built that litter, and put Michelle on my back, and hauled us out of those damned woods."

Sam manages a voiceless, "I know."

Dean turns to him, but his gaze only reaches the bulge of bandages over Sam's belly. The bullet hadn't breached the abdominal wall. A few centimeters deeper, a few more hours without medical care, and death would've claimed Sam once and for all.

"I never should have left you alone with him. I would've ripped Corbin apart limb by limb if I knew what he'd…" He swipes a hand over his mouth, and looks old, scared. "I don't know how you survived."

The crazy thing is Sam doesn't either.

He taps Dean's hand with the tip of a finger until he finally looks at him, all silver-eyed and quivering chin, and offers the barest of smiles, "No hipster's gonna take me out."

Dean snorts with short-lived laughter before he wilts, brooding again. Sam reminds himself to find out what Dean did when he thought he was dead, and that this is Dean's nightmare too.

Dean's hand returns, clenching hard enough to bruise. It's a pain born of comfort, one he welcomes. He's not remotely okay, but he knows that whatever happens, wherever he goes, Dean will help him find his way home.


	3. Side Effects

Thanks again for the feedback! A lot of you asked for this one. I had imagined it coming a little later, but this works too. Minor warning for language. This ficlet was too ambitious for the word limit. It originally clocked in at nearly 800 words. I sacrificed so much by cutting it that I decided to break my own rules to flesh it out a bit more. Sorry not sorry.

Let me know what you think.

* * *

 **Side Effects**

 **Word Count: 500**

They flee the Idaho wilds for civilization.

Dean's head throbs, but he refuses to complain because just twenty hours ago, Sam was holding his innards inside of him. He endures until the sun dips low and golden in the sky, emitting fiery light so bright that the road wavers and rolls in front of him. He carefully digs out the bottle of painkillers, and taps out three to dry-swallow.

A giant hand swats them away so violently, they scatter throughout the car. The Impala follows, veering onto the embankment and skidding to an erratic stop.

Sam is sheet-white and fuming. "What the fuck are you doing?" Sam growls.

Dean aims for innocence, "Uh…headache."

"Pretty sure that's a side effect from a _drug overdose_ , idiot. You really thought I wouldn't find out?!" Sam levers himself out of the car with a yelp of agonized exasperation.

Dean tries to draw in a cleansing breath with busted ribs and a wrecked spirit. He crosses the field where Sam is bowed against a scarred tree trunk. "I think you've done enough wounded nature walks for a lifetime. Get your ass in the car, Sammy."

"You can't just surrender when I die."

"It's my choice."

"Like you give a damn about choices! Mine was to stay at the cabin. If you would've listened..." Sam grimaces. "Well, it would've saved everyone a lot of pain."

"There's no universe where I'd leave you gut-shot and defenseless."

"I smoked both fangs and saved your ass, didn't I?" Sam fires back. "How do you think I would've felt if I survived all of that to find out that you _killed yourself_?" Sam's chin trembles, and Dean heart breaks a bit more. "How do you think I feel _now_?!"

He'd only seen Sam's body splayed out on the floor, breathless lungs and a beatless heart. Nothing else had mattered. "I got them to safety, because that's what you would've wanted. After that…I just couldn't—"

"Save it! I've heard it a thousand times, and it ends now. You die to save me again, and I'm driving your precious car into a brick wall or over a cliff the first chance I get."

Dean shudders, horrified. "Those meds are making you bonkers."

"Corbin thought he was saving the person he loved when he strangled me. I killed him in front of his wife to save you. You don't think she wants him back? Can't you see that breaking these rules it's colossally wrong?"

Dean can't battle Sam when he's still devastated from the hunt and what Dean had done. Beyond that, he's right. "Alright, Norma Rae. Get off your soapbox before you pop something."

He ducks under Sam's arm to guide him back to the car, but reels him in for a bone-crushing hug he shouldn't have been strong enough for. Except summoning otherworldly strength or shouldering great sacrifice is the Winchester way of showing love. "I'm sorry, Sammy. I won't do it again."

For now, at least, he means it.


	4. Side Effects Redux

I'm back! Thanks again for the lovely feedback. This is a new update of sorts. I had a very clear image of how I wanted the big confrontation between Sam and Dean to go, and while I have happy with the 400 word version, it didn't feel like that image. Jenjoremy pointed out that keeping the word limit may take away from the story, so I decided to finish the first version before I started hacking at it. It's slightly different than that original picture-ugh writing-but I think it's a more complete scene. Let me know what you think. _Revised for typos, thanks y'all!_

* * *

 **Side Effects Redux**

 **Word Count: 1,729**

They drive in shell-shocked quiet in a car, fleeing the Idaho wilds for civilization.

Dean opts for the newly paved freeway instead of the neglected backroads, aiming for a less jarring drive and finding novel solace in the traffic. The people sitting and singing in their cars. He wants to be in a city and a decent motel before Sam's hospital-grade painkillers wear off. They both need the rest.

Sam holds himself tightly in the passenger seat, pinched and pale.

Dean's busted ribs throb and his impaled chest hurts, but he has no space to complain about pain when just twenty-four hours ago, Sam was holding his innards inside of him. Thus he swallows it down, and offers a causal, "I called Renna for clean-up. She'll take care of the rest of the pack." Sam and Dean don't have many traditions, but the post-hunt debriefing is a treasured one, and he clings to the fragment of normalcy.

Sam's frown is more a grimace, probably because the car still reeks of Lysol and old blood. "She can check for strays but the rest are gone."

"How'd you know?"

"'Cause I killed 'em."

Dean double-takes so hard his neck cracks. "D-did you cure cancer while gut-shot too?"

Sam can't laugh, but it's a near thing, telegraphed by the shine in his eyes. "Needed a ride."

"You kicked it in the ass, Sammy," Dean says gruffly but it's brimming with affection.

His brother smiles and slides down a bit in an attempt to rest. It's only when Sam's hurt that he notices how he has to wedge his giant frame into the car. Sam never seems to mind though.

The sun dips low and golden in the sky, painting the horizon in fiery light so bright Dean's sunglasses are useless against the rays, and his head throbs so much the road blurs in front of him. He gingerly digs for a bottle of painkillers in the bin beneath the seat as Sam dozes beside him, head pillowed on Dean's balled up jacket.

The pills clatter loudly in the bottle as he pops it up one-handed. He palms three to dry-swallow.

A giant hand swats them away so violently, they plink and scatter throughout the car, and the Impala follows, veering on the rumble strip before Dean stamps on the brakes. A plume of dust a few angry honks scream by as the car rocks still.

Sam is sheet-white beside him, chest heaving. "What the fuck do you think you're doing?" Even a day after being shot, Sam can still menace better than hell's most vicious.

Dean aims for innocence. "Uh…headache?"

"Pretty sure that's a side effect from _drug overdose_ , you idiot," Sam seethes. Dean instantly starts sweating. "You really think I wouldn't find out?"

"You were dead, what was I supposed to do?"

Sam glares at him with anger so intense, he actually growls before levering himself out of the car with a yelp of agonized frustration, and staggers into the wide open planes beyond the roadside.

It's a beautiful day, warm sunshine tempers the briskness of stubborn winter, and there are pops of yellow and red wildflowers dotting the expanse of green.

Dean slumps against the steering wheel and tries to draw in a cleansing breath with broken ribs and a wrecked spirit. He gives Sam a few minutes of space, and then ventures across the wind-whipped grasses to catch up to his brother.

"Haven't you done enough wounded nature walks for a lifetime? Get your ass in the car, Sam."

Sam is braced against the knobby trunk of a budding tree, looking stricken beneath the budding boughs. "You don't get to throw in the towel because I die. Newsflash: I'm going to die. Sooner rather than later."

Dean shrugs. "We've done this dance before, Sammy. It's my choice."

"Since when do you give a damn about choices?" Sam scoffs. "My choice was to stay in the cabin, but you didn't listen. You never listen! If you would've done what I asked, and left..." Sam grimaces, "Well, we would've saved everyone a lot of pain."

"There's no universe where I'd leave you shot, bleeding out and defenseless with werewolves on the prowl," Dean says, crossing his arms over his chest.

"I saved your ass, so clearly I wasn't," Sam shoots back. "How do you think I would've felt if I survived all of that to find out that you _killed_ _yourself_?" Sam asks, chin trembling. "How do you think I feel _now_?"

Sam's tremulous voice stuns him into silence. He saw Sam's body splayed out on the floor, breathless lungs and a beatless heart, and nothing else had mattered. He's always had a reckless streak, and it tends to veer into the self-destructive and insane when Sam's well-being is on the line. "I got them to safety because I knew that's what you would've wanted. After that I just couldn't—"

"Save it, Dean! I've heard this crap a thousand times! We're coming down the barrel of the biggest things we've ever hunted. Amara, Lucifer wearing Cas, the end of the world. I'm game to kill Amara, you know that, but odds are I'm not coming back. I'm at peace with that. At least I thought I was...but I can't go into it knowing you're just going to eat your gun after the dust clears."

It has taken all of Dean's energy not to sadistically and obsessively imagine his little brother using a Hand Of God weapon to kill Amara, of disintegrating in a gale of light. Confronted with the notion now, Dean's entire being rejects the idea, and he suppresses the reflex to vomit.

He swipes a hand over his mouth and gazes off into the distance. Cars zoom up the freeway going to birthday parties and hardware stores and movie theaters, never noticing the two men on the shoulder accountable for their tomorrows.

Had that been why Sam had been so excited about this hunt? Was he hoping that the case was a dead end and they'd end up camping in the woods, just two brothers communing with nature and making memories while they still could? It was what Dean had done after selling his soul. "Sammy…"

" _Shut up_!" Sam roars. In the distance, a flock of finches leap into the sky. "You need to listen to me, Dean, because I am not pullin' any punches. And I'm not doing this shit again, Dean. _I can't._ So I'm fighting fire with fire: You decide to die or make some crapass deal to save me, and I'll end it anyway. I'll drive that precious car of yours into a brick wall or off a cliff the first change I get."

Dean blinks, mouth agape, and it takes him a long moment to gather his thoughts. "That's just cruel. Mind your blood pressure, man."

"I'm not kidding." Sam's anger is careening towards the irrational and dangerous for someone just ten hours post-op, but Sam's no longer yelling or flailing or sputtering.

He's intensely resolved and in complete control, and that's how Dean knows _he's completely serious_. Dean doesn't know whether to be flattered by an ultimatum sponsored by selfless, fraternal love or to drive them both to the nearest asylum.

The late afternoon sun glides over Sam's face, illuminating the faintly blue smudges on Sam's jawline, echoes of fingerprints.

This hunt is a gruesome suckerpunch for them both, especially for an emo do-gooder like Sam who despite his new penchant for internalizing everything, still feels as profoundly as ever. "I'm so sorry about what Corbin did to you. We...we can talk about that if you want."

Sam leans against the tree, all averted eyes and hunched posture. "He was just doing what he thought he had to to save the person he loved," Sam whispers. His eyes are leaking and painfully bright when they lock on Dean's, "Sound familiar?"

The comment sends him staggering back, grass hissing underfoot. "You really think I'd kill someone, an innocent, to save you?"

"We've both done a hell of a lot worse." His face twists in pain as he presses a hand to his stomach, riding out cresting wave of pain. He plows on, even though he's desperately pale and becoming shaky on his feet. "It makes you think, ya know? I killed Michelle's husband right in front of her. You don't think she wants him back? Playing these games and breaking these rules over and over again, it's… _colossally wrong_ to the people who can't, and the people who die because of it. _It has to stop_. We have to stop."

Dean can't battle Sam when he's still devastated from this horrific hunt and what Dean had done. Beyond that, he's right.

When pushed too far, the lengths Dean would sink to save his brother often disturbs even him. In some ghastly, walled off part of his soul where Dean stows his hell-born bloodlust and a wickedness too brutal to use topside, Dean figures if he's trapped in a life of gankin' the universe's nastiest, he's owed the right to do it with the person he loves the most safely by his side, consequences be damned.

It dawns on him that Sam's shuttered wish may be something else entirely, and that breaks his heart completely. "Alright, Norma Rae. Get off your soapbox before you pop something."

Sam wipes his eyes, and shakes his head. "This isn't a joke." He sways a little, squinting into the sunlight.

Dean steadies him with a careful grip on his upper arms. "Does it look like I'm laughin'? I hear you, Sammy. I also see you about to face-plant, so come on."

He ducks under Sam's arm to guide him back to the car, but Sam reels him in for a bone-crushing hug he shouldn't have been strong enough for.

Except summoning otherworldly strength or making a great sacrifice is the Winchester way of showing love, and Dean can't help but wonder if that it's what kept Sammy alive, why he's fighting so hard now.

Dean gently ruffles the ridiculously long hair covering the nape of his neck, and lets Sam sniffle and shudder into his jacket. "I'm sorry, Sammy," he whispers, his own voice breaking a little. "I won't do it again. I promise."

For now, Dean truly means it.


	5. The Last Remedy

Hi, I'm back with another longer story. Let what know what you think.

* * *

 **The Last Remedy**

Dean would have gladly done a second stint in Purgatory if it meant Sam's suffering would end.

Sam had gotten shot clear across the country from the bunker, and the drive home is as brutal as it is long. Every pothole, rough stop and lane change is torturous, Dean knows.

His little brother internalizes pain like fuel, but abdominal injuries are different. Even with painkillers, it quickly becomes too much. The strong antibiotics combined with the rocking of the car have added nausea to the post-surgical, post-hunt agony.

Sam slinks out of the rest-stop bathroom, fingers trailing on the rock brick wall for support as he weaves towards the car. His hair is stringy and dark from dampness, and Dean can't tell if it's because he's sweating from fever or if he'd splashed water on his face in the bathroom after throwing up again.

Dean leans against the hood of the car, hands clenched in his pockets and forces himself not to help. Sam would only shrug it off.

He sees the dread in Sam's face though, his cheeks somehow fading to an even starker shade of white as he prepares for the agony of cramming himself inside of the Impala. He's already popped two stitches.

"Smells like a sewer in there," he mutters as he staggers passed.

Dean bites his lip and slides over a bit, knocking Sam's hand off the doorhandle. "There's a flight—Salt Lake City to Kansas City. You'll be on the ground in Missouri in three hours. Drugged up and unconscious in five," Dean hedges.

Sam wrinkles his nose and sags against the car. "Kansas City is hours away from the bunker."

"Renna's friend Aisha said she'd pick you up…or you can steal a car. You love doin' that."

Sam shivers a bit. "I'm fine, Dean. Let's keep pushing 'til dark."

Dean scoffs. "That word doesn't mean what you think it means." Sam has abandoned the regular clothes and bravado he had after leaving. His always prim and proper little brother looks slightly homeless in Dean's too-short navy blue trackpants, a convenient button-down orange flannel, and a cheap, too-big "Welcome To Idaho" hoodie Dean snagged on the way out of state. "You need rest and quiet and nerdy documentaries on Netflix, not bumping along the Impala for eight hours a day with a stapled-together gut!"

Sam's face hardens to granite. "Someone has to chaperon you...make sure you don't OD again," he shoots back. He tugs on the doorhandle until Dean relents.

The below-the-belt remark doesn't hurt Dean's feelings. He's still euphoric that Sam's alive to nag and snipe at him that someone could Molotov the Impala and he'd barely flinch. It does serve as a visceral reminder of Sam's emotional state. Neither of them are ready to let the other out of their sight, and Dean can't argue with that.

-SPN-

Dean pushes for three more hours before they settle into a Holiday Inn for the night. The room is spotless, and is painted a cool blue that takes the edge off of Dean's anxiety.

He waits until Sam is asleep and snoring, thanks to Percocet, and slips into the bathroom to take advantage of the endless hot water supply. The heat feels good on his aching ribs and head.

The bathroom has always been a sanctuary from the Winchesters. He used to find Sam curled around books bigger than him in the various bathtubs across the country.

Dean let's the big brother composure slip away, and allows himself to worry about Sam's health, fret about his own sanity, and just breathe.

The shower, a carafe of coffee and the normalcy of Sam snoring in the bed next to his with reruns on in the background is enough to stabilize Dean, who's been in a freefall since taking this nightmarish hunt.

Finally, he sleeps.

-SPN-

There are a few fundamental principles to Sam that even Lucifer couldn't alter: Dean will never understand the depths of Sam's intelligence; Sam always operates in the extreme; and Dean will always be the person Sam needs when he's scared.

It's why he snaps from REM sleep to a hotel room filled with lopsided light and Sam's tremulously calling his name. Dean scrambles out of bed, ignoring his screaming ribs before he registers the upended lamp, a tipped over bottle of water gurgling onto the floor, and his brother perched on the edge of his bed, drenched.

Sam's teeth clench around burgeoning screams, and his fist is tightly knotted in the top sheet.

"Sam, what?"

He sees it then, and wonders if he's stumbled from slumber directly into a nightmare, because blood dribbles through the negative space of his fingers pressed over his belly. Dean cradles Sam's face in his hands and flinches at the heat wafting off of him. Infection was inevitable, and they had all taken precautions to control it. Apparently, the beast didn't want to be contained.

"Hang on," Dean runs into the bathroom, snatching a towel off the rack as he heads towards the sink. He loops the entire length of his under the cool water of the faucet. He grabs the first aid kit on the way back, trailing water and bandages in his wake. When he returns Sam is wilting off the edge of the bed and onto the floor. Dean drops everything and controls his descent. He folds Sam's too long body over his own bended legs. He laves his face with the soggy, bleached towel and realizes that it is a dark pallor than Sam.

Sam startles, and tries to retreat from what has to be arctic cold on his fevered skin. "...can't keep track, D-deeeen. Where're we?" Sam croaks.

Beyond the burn of the fever, Dean can feel the tightness of Sam's body and that he's breathing in rapid pulses, like he's run miles into headwinds. His pulse is far weaker than it should be. "Don't worry about it, Sammy. You're not missin' anything important. Think you tore your stitches a little, bud."

Sam's head flops back in his lap, even as his eyes dart about the room as if following something. " _He did it,_ " he seethes, eyes pinned to empty space over Dean's shoulder. A chill licks up Dean's back.

He huffs into the air, checking for frost, evidence of a ghost, but room is comfortably warm. Sam is just delirious. "That bastard's not touchin' you again, Sam. I got this, don't worry." Dean gruffs.

Sam's response is a ragged whine. Dean gently lifts his chin, and curses. Sam's eyes are glassy and eerily vacant, and he's mumbling what sounds like a perplexing mix of Enochian and Latin. Fevers always coax out Sam's darkest nightmares, and it doesn't help that that of Lucifer and The Cage are painfully close to the surface.

"I need to look. Can I look?" Sam had been protective of the wound, opting to change the bandages himself.

"Hurts...worse than when I was shot, Dean." Sam's hand is still pressed to the wound and he's fighting against the pain and whatever beasts leer from the shadows.

Dean is already dragging the motel room phone off the nightstand and dials the front desk. The operator greets him far too chipperly. "I'm in room 451. My brother is hurt and bleeding and needs an ambulance _rightnow_. Call them right now and direct them to the room."

Dean peels his fingers away and inches up Sam's shirt. Only then does he know why Sam hasn't let him see it. Just a glimpse of it makes him gag. The bullet made a clean, albeit, bloody entry but his ordeal in the woods had torn it wide. Now it is an ugly, puckered mess smeared with the odorous markers of infection. Only three stitches remain, the rest are snapped and erect, like the bent tines of a fork. "Hospital-grade my ass."

And Sam was more than just shot. There are wide blotches of his bruises stretching over his ribs and chest like super-sized leeches and bandaged abrasions on his hips. "Jesus, Sammy."

Dean bandages peels off the sodden bandage, tears open a new pad with his teeth and holds it to the wound with even pressure. At least Sam picks the optimum time to pass out.

For the third time in four days, Dean holds his gravely injured little brother and hopes they can fight off death one more time.

-SPN-

The infection has spread to Sam's blood.

And Dean feels a double-slap of insult to worsening injury at the notion of Sam's blood causing him harm. His surgeon, though he's livid at the shoddy care he received at the clinic, is still confident that Sam will recover after debreeding the wound and flooding his system with fluids and stronger antibiotics.

The problem is that Sam's fever burns away his lucidity like a wildfire cutting through drought-dried lands. Dean quickly figures out how Sam tore his stitches. Sam writhes and wiggles on the bed like a boneless conduit of fear. He mutters in archaic languages and fights devils that aren't there. When a fearless but slight nurse catches a flailing elbow to the face, even Dean can't convincingly argue against soft restraints anymore.

He now resides in an intimate hell where his brother, gut-shot, delirious and ripe with fever, pleading for the kind of help Dean can't offer. His voice only further upsets Sam. His touch plunges him deeper into his delirium-born terror. Thus, Dean can only sit beside the bed and force himself to find the silver comfort in the erratic, too-fast beep of the heart.

It happens gradually, but Sam ramblings are diminished to barely audible whispers, small snuffles of sound that are become more peaceful than paranoid. Dean hovers over the bed, eyes flickering to the monitors and gently reaches out to grasp Sam's hand. Sam sighs in his sleep, head turning towards him. Offering the barest of grins, Dean unbuckles the soft restraints, and holds Sam's hands instead.

His fever breaks sometime around dawn, though Dean's unsure of the day. After seeing Sam's progress and labwork, his doctor cautiously begins to talk about recovery and discharge.

Eight days after Sam was shot, Dean guides his brother into his bedroom in the bunker. Groggy from the drugs and hindered by pain, Sam can only watch Dean piles his bed with pillows.

As he's done for days, Dean ignores his own exhaustion to tend to Sam, who's still worryingly weak and noticeably thinner. But Dean is still running on a euphoric mix of relief and gratitude. He can keep going as long as he has to.

"All right, Sammy, few more minutes and you'll can knock out, okay?" He places Sam's arm around his neck, their knees bumping awkwardly, and eases him upward into a slightly hunched stance. They shuffle backwards in a bleary-eyed waltz, until Sam's near the middle of the bed. His little brother's fingers twist into the collar of Dean's shirt as he braces for the discomfort of engaging torn muscles. They both exhale, stooping in a swift, smooth motion. Sam's head lulls forward, too dry hair and warm skin thumping on Dean's shoulder as he rides it out. "I gotcha, Sammy...bring your legs up, okay? Just like the doctor showed us." Dean says.

Dean hooks an arm under his legs and lifts as Sam sags against the mound pillows. "You good?"

"Mhmm...home," Sam smiles, eyes already sinking shut.

Dean swaddles him in blankets to insulate against the bunker's chill. "Can't remember the last time I tucked you in, dude." He says sinking down next to Sam.

He grabs his head that aches acutely now that Sam's comfortable and safe, and the fumes of energy he was running on dissipate. The utilitarian order of Sam's room wobbles and smears in front of him.

Sam pries his eyes open to stare at him pointedly. "Get in."

"What?"

"You're done, dude," Sam's fingers latch onto his sleeve with the arm still bearing his hospital bracelet, but he doesn't have the strength to tug. "C'mon. Jus' crash here."

Dean wouldn't have put up a fight if he could. He toes off his boots and settles ontop of the covers beside Sam even though he's rumpled and smelly from three days of bird baths in the hospital bathroom and hours in an overheated car. Sam merely flings the corner of a blanket over him.

In the morning Dean will say he only did it to monitor Sam's fever or to make sure he didn't tear his stitches open again.

In the morning, Sam will ignore the tear stains on Dean's pillow and that they'd woke up cuddled together like puppies.

But as the security of the bunker yawns around them, it also locks in the panic and reality of what could have happened to both of them.

After days of hospitals, surgeries, sutures, and medications, the last remedy is simply each other.


	6. New Rule

**This plotbunny was too fluffy and adorable to note write. Let me know what you think.**

* * *

 **New Rule**

It's Winchester irony that Sam's phone is across the room when it rings. He's propped up on every pillow on the bunker, dozing through his 50th episode of "Law and Order: SVU," and is just miserable enough to take advantage of his new and significantly shorter shadow. "Dean!"

Dean materializes a second later, slightly panicked. "What?! You okay?"

Sam points in a vague direction of the ringing. "My phone…on the desk."

"I got it, don't move." The fact that Dean doesn't fling obscenities or a boot at him and actually obliges is a testament to how guilt-ridden and worried he still is. He hands it to him without a word and slips out of the room.

Sam cringes at the Caller ID, and clears his throat before answering. "Hey." He attempts casual and healthy but lands on roadkill.

Jody Mills forgoes a greeting for an immediate, " _What happened_?"

"Jody, hey. I'm fine." There aren't any Emmys in his future.

"You know that I, a mother, a sheriff and a hunter, detect bullshit for a living, Sam. Try again."

"I-uh-got shot…a on a hunt."

Jody swears so obscenely Dean would be impressed. "And you didn't think to call anyone?! How bad?"

He frowns. "Is there a _good_ way to get shot?"

Jody sighs to cover her laughter. "You're still a smartass, so that's a good sign. Tell me you didn't die again."

Sam's unsure of how to answer. "The bullet didn't pierce my abdominal wall, though it's torn up pretty good, and then it got infected, so I'm havin' a blast." He hadn't seen the inside of a clinic or hospital in a few days, so he considered it a win.

"I'm so sorry, Sam. Do you want to talk about it?"

Sam snapped his teeth together a few times, and shook his head abortively. "Not right now."

"Fair enough. I'll be here when you're ready, you know that. You boys need anything?"

"Your mashed potatoes and gravy," Sam jokes. "Beyond that, I just…"

"—have too much time to think?"

"Dean won't let me get out of bed or do any research, so definitely." Sam rubs his face. Pain blossoms and creates a tactile model of Corbin's hand.

The tender bruises were concealed by facial hair, but it always there, a mental booby-trap to blindside him and disrupt his hard-won peace. Right now, Sam isn't strong enough to unpack it all. Jody's always been a curious concoction of sarcasm, shrewdness and unwavering love, and he feels safe enough to be honest, though he's surprised by the emotion that rushes forth when he does. "I'm tryin' to be okay, but I'm just not."

Jody makes a motherly sound of understanding. "You're going to be fine, Sam, but you're allowed not to be a while. You should know that better than anyone."

But does he? With Amara and Lucifer on the loose, Sam doesn't have the luxury of a breakdown. He wipes his eyes angrily. This botched hunt isn't the end of days, yet and he worries that it's tarnished the goodness in him that he guards at all costs. Beyond that, he is profoundly tired.

"Get some rest, Samuel. We'll talk later."

"Thanks, Jody. I'll call you soon." He lets the phone drop, and doesn't bother trying to get comfortable, and falls asleep to the tinned sound of Olivia Benson crying.

He awakes to distinctively feminine laughter, the frenetic stomp of running through the halls of the bunker, and the smell of browned butter and herbs. Before Sam can summon the energy to investigate, Jody breezes into his bedroom bearing a dazzling grin and a bowl billowing with butter-studded white and dark gravy. "New Rule: You get shot, you get mashed potatoes."

Sam sputters with shock and fights tears as she kisses his forehead and hands him the bowl as Alex and Claire bound into the room with an obscene amount of brightly colored balloons and a giant stuffed animal tiger.

He's halfway through the bowl of steaming potatoes and gravy and well into Dean's exaggerated tale of Sam's heroics when he realizes something big: there was no shame in being a little broken right now, but what Sam had forgotten is that he had family to hold him together.


End file.
